Do Kwon can finally breathe a sigh of relief, at least temporarily, because his bail request of close to $427,900 (€400,000) was accepted after the High Court verified his property to be “worth millions.” Initially, the lower court granted them bail without concrete evidence of the value of their property.
The founder of the collapsed multi-billion cryptocurrency enterprise, together with his finance officer, has been on the radar of the authorities in South Korea after the collapse of their firm in May last year. Since his arrest, both South Korea and the U. S. have requested Kwon’s extradition to face criminal charges after his trial in Montenegro.
On May 12, the primary court of Podgorica – the country’s capital, approved bail. Still, the ruling was set aside after the prosecution successfully appealed against it, arguing that it was not based on concrete evidence of the price of the defendant’s property.
The appeal made at the High Court agreed with the prosecution that the lower court could not accept the property’s value without a sound assessment.
The value of their property has now been confirmed using sales contracts, invoices, and bank account statements allowing bail to be granted. However, the prosecution can still appeal the decision within three days.
It must be remembered that Do Kwon presided over the collapse of a high-yielding algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD and its companion token Luna which triggered a broader wipeout in the crypto market. Kwon was arrested in Montenegro in March after allegedly being on the run for several months.
Kwon’s Arrest
His arrest came as he tried to fly to Dubai using forged travel documents. Immediately after his arrest, U. S. Federal prosecutors charged him with multiple fraud charges, including conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud investors and engage in market manipulation. But that is not all; in his home country of Korea, Kwon faces charges of violating the capital markets law and fraud charges in Singapore.
When did the rain start beating Kwon?
Before this prosecution, Do Kwon, a graduate of Stanford University, had started an ambitious project rooted in blockchain technology known as Terraform Labs. The lab’s vision was to create a decentralized finance network through TerraUSD (USD) and Luna (LUNA) tokens. USD was designed to maintain a steady value of 1 USD, backed by the floating rate cryptocurrency Luna.
Luna performed beyond expectations. So much such that its fanbase referred to themselves as lunatics while disregarding the conservative opinions of the experts.
By March 2022, Luna had soared to a high of $120 a token before hitting $116 on May 4. However, over the next ten days, it fell to near zero in what Terraform Labs alleged was a deliberate attack from adversaries
After the collapse of Luna and TerraUSD in May 2022, Terraform Labs started trading a new cryptocurrency termed Luna 2.0 in 2022. However, this new release has not been received well by investors and critics
As a result of the crash, TerraUSD and Luna are now referred to as TerraClassicUSD and LUNC, respectively.
